and any happy combinations that may result, plus various maunderings that occasionally pop to mind.

Sunday, April 17, 2016

Arena Forest Reserve 4/4--10 Life Birds, 1 Year Bird

Ever the proofreader, I found a typo in this sign: "rresented"

We started the day in the Arena Forest Preserve, an evergreen forest. "Evergreen" to me means pine, spruce, cedar--trees with needles, but these trees had the leaves of a deciduous tree--they just don't fall.

PLUMBEOUS KITE

BAT FALCON

The first interesting bird we found was a PLUMBEOUS KITE perched in a dead tree. It resembled, superficially, the Mississippi Kite that was the sensation of Ocean County last summer. A little farther along the road I spotted a small bird atop another dead tree. I knew it was a bird but Kim knew immediately that it was a good find, a BAT FALCON, looking a bit like a cross between a kestrel and peregrine.

It was in this forest that we got our first looks at big icterids, YELLOW-RUMPED CACIQUE and the truly huge CRESTED OROPENDOLA. Fun fact:Like orioles, to whom they're related, oropendolas weave a basket-like nest. But, unlike the rather small nest orioles make, oropendola nests are, to use the image Kim seared into our minds, like big, swinging scrotums. And since they are social birds, one tree may have 10 or 20 of these nest wafting to & fro in the breeze.

Oropendola nestsPhoto: Shari Zirlin

A proud moment for me was when we heard a bird sing. Kim stopped to listen and I said it sounded like a vireo (specifically, White-eyed Vireo). It turned out to be a kind of vireo, the RUFOUS-BROWED PEPPERSHRIKE, which, you must admit, is a great sounding name. This goes down as a minor victory for me in my never ending struggle to master ear-birding.

We also came across the only toucan on the island, looking just like the bird on the Fruit Loops box:CHANNEL-BILLED TOUCAN.